Letter: Obamacare isn't the way to fix healthcare system

I find it interesting that the media are so critical of the effort of Republicans to defund Obamacare. I teach high school level social studies and explain to my students that we are a representative democracy and that the role of their senators and congressmen is to represent them in Washington. The Huffington Post in their latest survey found that 33 percent of the population feels the Affordable Care Act will be an improvement to our current health care system. But 47 percent felt that this act will actually make things worse. That means 40 percent more of the general public thinks the new law is a poor one than those who think its good.

Second, please stop saying that we will like the law once it is implemented. Advocates point to Social Security and Medicare being popular now after not being supported at their inception because almost no one would want to give up these entitlements today. Quite simply, the reason people do not want to give them up is that they've already paid for them. A retiree may have paid as much as $50,000 toward Medicare and over $100,000 toward Social Security. Of course, he doesn't want to lose such a huge investment. That doesn't mean he would have supported the law back when it first began.

Our healthcare system is broken and needs to be fixed. Obamacare is not the way. It is basically the first step to a national health system and the last thing we need with ballooning debt problems is another government run entitlement program. Let's put our energy toward improving the private health care system. And on that direction, a little help from the media in providing balanced reporting would be a good first step.

Jim Zickos

Greer

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Letter: Obamacare isn't the way to fix healthcare system

I find it interesting that the media are so critical of the effort of Republicans to defund Obamacare.